Volodymyr P. Solodchuk

Solodchuk Volodymyr Petrovych was born on June 18, 1980, in the village of Zalissia, Narodychi district, Zhytomyr region. Since the late 1990s, he served in the internal affairs bodies. In recent years, he worked as the deputy head of the police activity sector No. 1 of the Korosten District Police Department in Zhytomyr region. He was a professional in his field. He knew people, the locality, the roads, principled and responsible. There was a case when we worked in the village for 2 days on a theft, and Volodymyr Petrovych was on vacation, and we reached a dead end. We told him about it. He says: "I was a district police officer there, let's go, we'll figure it out now." On the same day, the perpetrators were identified, and the stolen property was found. He was in his place, and in over a year of working with him, I learned a lot," said the head of the police activity sector No. 1 of the Korosten District Police Department, Oleksandr Kulish. He was very responsible, with a keen sense of justice. The deputy head of the local unit personally, together with other police officers, went on February 27, 2022, to check a report of suspicious persons who were sending light signals from a fire tower towards the border with Belarus. Their official car was ambushed and fired upon with automatic weapons. Volodymyr Solodchuk was driving and was killed by the first shots, along with his colleague. The circumstances of the man's death cannot be heard by his wife, Natalia Mykolaivna, to this day. For her, his most important words spoken in the first days of the war remain: "Protect the children!" The eldest son, Maksym, is already an 11th-grader and is making decisions about his future profession. When asked about his father, the boy recalls: "Dad didn't specifically teach me: he just started working, and I was with him, helping. He taught me to drive a car, a tractor... He was cheerful, joked... Sometimes serious..." 15-year-old daughter Viktoriia says they had one passion with their father - rock music: "Dad advised what to listen to better. He himself played the guitar, sang, although lately less and less. But when we went to a concert during our vacation in Odesa, we liked it so much..." Natalia Mykolaivna listens to the children and cannot hold back her tears: "I got used to his busyness and frequent calls. But I never expected this... He tried to do everything himself: at home and at work. Although we hardly talked about his work - he almost didn't tell anything. In those days, after February 24, there was no time to talk at all. I woke up in the morning from the explosion, then another one followed, and we realized: the war that everyone talked about and didn't believe in had come. The husband was immediately called to service, and for 2 days I almost didn't see him, only talked on the phone or ran home for a few minutes. That evening he came, but quickly gathered and went to work again... We had no idea what was happening and what to expect next. He asked to take the children and leave..." Vladyslav Tretiak was next to Volodymyr Solodchuk at the moment of his death and was wounded: "When the war started, Volodymyr Petrovych said: it doesn't matter if I die, the main thing is that the children are alive and healthy, that they survive. So now the least we can do is support his family and help them. He was a patriot of Ukraine and was very concerned about Russia's attack." For personal courage and selfless actions manifested in the defense of the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath, Police Major Volodymyr Petrovych Solodchuk was awarded the Order of Courage, III degree (posthumously).